Guest Columns

The allocation of foreign exchange to Jane and Beharry Public continues to be inequitable and discriminatory. The ordinary citizen cannot get foreign exchange but franchises keep popping up all over the place. Clearly if you operate in the right circles you can get foreign exchange at will. Who needs another …

The Police’s seizure of Mr Devant Maharaj’s phone in pursuit of information, re the recent credible bomb threat, raises important questions about the evolution of the media and the preservation of press freedom. The importance does not arise merely on the issue of the action taken but we need to …

The insightful story by Suzanne Mills about her mother’s struggles is useful to highlight how the media wrestles with framing the large issues of life. It raises the issue of how we define who is a good editor. Is the metric the profitability of the media house, or is it …

“At around 2 or 3pm, the commencement of crunch time, some editor, perhaps even I, would stick our heads out of our offices and ask, ‘No murders yet?’ […] As the murder toll rose, I asked Therese [Mills], ‘What’s the point of these crime front pages? We’re not making a sliver …

I drove past the Petrotrin refinery one night and felt the stillness that darkness provides. In my imagination, I saw the stare of thousands of eyes from the darkness. It is now six months since Petrotrin chairman Wilfred Espinet wielded his axe, with the full permission of the current government, …

Back in the mid-80s, when I was in Form 3 or 4 at St Benedict’s College, a film was shown about the Rapture—an event in which the ‘righteous’ would suddenly be swept up into the clouds to be with Jesus and away from the horrific tribulations that would befall everyone …

The Privy Council decision in Maharaj v Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd, [2019] UKPC 21 (20 May 2019) has shone a Guaracara-esque spotlight onto Petrotrin’s decision to abandon its $97 million USD claim against Malcolm Jones. According to the Court, based on the evidence available to them, ‘there …

Shooting wars begin as culture wars and culture wars are initiated by ideas. So let’s for a minute set aside Uncle Sam’s amoral adventures in Venezuela; or not—because this issue is partly about what led to it in the first place. A few years ago Professor Merle Hodge wrote an …

“Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy.” Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Prize Laureate. The spectacle of a former …

An interview with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his constituents seemed to aggravate a deep wound in that area. What I saw and heard was a man from within the constituency reliving the pain of the shooting death of his mother WPC Bernadette James and asking for some assurance …

Can a nation experience vertigo? The feeling of not just dizziness but when either your head or the room is spinning but you are not sure which? We are battered into unease almost daily by persons who seek to burn down our institutions or destroy our sense of calm. Arson …

Take away the gold chain and the ‘Zesser’ descriptor fits several other people in Trinidad and Tobago. Some of them drive Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes Benz, Range Rover, BMW and other high-end cars. Some of them live in specially outfitted high-rise apartments; they pay for tables where their friends lime or …